Details leaked of ATI R600 series

New cards obscene in both size and power consumption

Shares

If recent history is anything to go by, ATI 's new R600 was unlikely to be a compact affair. To be announced to the press on 12 March, VR-Zone reports the OEM version of the new DirectX 10-capable card is a whopping 12.4 inches long. That's 31.5cm. Retail cards will be 9.5 inches in length.

Cited wattage is jaw-dropping, with 270W for the OEM card - that's 100W more than Nvidia's 8800GTX DirectX 10-capable card. As you'd expect, the pictures show dual PCI Express power connectors.

According to VR-Zone, this version will have 1GB of memory. The mid-range XT version will have 512MB of GDDR3 memory, with a 240W power rating. The cheaper XL version will follow later on.

AMD obviously hopes to steal a march on Nvidia for full DirectX 10 capability as the latter company struggles for fully DirectX 10 compatible drivers. Confusingly, the self-proclaimed "processing powerhouse" still labels many of its graphics solutions as ATI, despite trying earlier to try and bring everything under a single brand.